Fath had worked tirelessly with spiritual conviction. The temples were nearing completion, but there were inner voices at work within his mind that he could not explain as divine guidance.
[spoiler]
They were thoughts and instructions from just beyond his concious understanding and a series of events over the last few years had finally made them become clear.
The first event had been the death of Moldath, one of the last great warriors of the Mountainous Castles who had survived the invasion of Hell.
It left Iton, as the last survivng member of that great battle. That is when the fragmented thoughts began.
They became clearer when the glass tower reached the first river bed. The engineers and miners led by King Zan himself had a difficult task ahead of them as the glass tower was to go through two rivers, a waterfall and a narrow 2 level aquifer. They postulated many solutions on how to dam the rivers, but in the end the king simply concluded to pour magma strategically on both and mine out the stone where needed.
The aquifer was a more difficult challenge. They began to dig down into it from above letting the water pour into the river basin and flow downstream, then pour magma around the edge to seal the water within the stone.
They repeated this for the 2nd level until the river bed was completely dry. But still the voices inside Fath were unintelligible.
The king then set to channelling out the river bed and replacing it with glass.
It was then that the first rays of sunlight blazed through the immense glass spire and reached the slade floors of Hell.
Fath felt as though he had been stuck and he could hear the ground tremble with electric vibaration as though an alien heartbeat stirred to life within the ground. He could see the eerie glowing pits pulse with hidden energies and at last he heard the voice speak a word to him in a low growled whisper, "Armok".
Fath knew what was to be done. A grand temple to one God, his God, the God of his blood. And when his God came to him, Fath would be ready to serve and control of Archcrystal would be his, and his alone.
Zan the king had been aware of Fath's divine devotion for many years, however it gave him no pause. He was an industrious king and there was work to be done. He and his engineers replaced the stone river bed with dwarven glass.
Once completed he gave the command for the first dam to be broken and let the river flow again through the tower and on its way downriver, just in time for the heavy rains that began to refill the empty river.
He then instructed honey bees to be brought down to hell as they could finally survive in the sunlit portions of hell.
At last, he could slate his thirst for mead and honey. The others nicknamed the insect, "demon bees", half-joking that they were breeding something that would slaughter them all.
Fath had fevered dreams full of reckoning and obscure reference. He could see and reach for something just beyond his sight and grasp, but never obtain. He knew the fight for Archcrystal would soon begin, its intricacies stretching towards their finality and his ambition burning with white hot certainty. The glory would be his and the rest be damned - even if the glory was fleeting he didn't care. They were either all damned or the only pious few below a world of damnation who were cursed to never witness the evidence of miracles that could peirce the underworld with order and industry. Such were the dwarves of Archcrystal now, he thought. Blessed crusaders of architectural marvel and thieves of holy design. They would take what only gods were meant for and make it theirs as the ghosts of their ancestors watched through translucent tombs, for at last Fath understood the meaning of Armok - the one God was themselves. They, as a whole, were the great God they had been waiting for that awoke in a sunlit hell. To design the world as they see it, grow tired of its novelty, and then abandon it to mediocrity or oblivion or both. They would not falter for only they could decide its fate, and design it's inspired and glorious structures fueled by a divinity without limit. But Fath knew he had to unite the dwarves under his holy banner and only then would he achieve the power that he sought: a puritan force of godly dwarves that started with Archcrystal and spread across the world to shape and control the immense design of things.
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Topic: Archcrystal: 500 years in a fortress [SPOILERS] Finished (Read 480597 times)